


Odin Sphere: A Romance of Five Kingdoms

by Adam_Typing



Category: Odin Sphere
Genre: Gen, Novelization
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 15:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2314409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adam_Typing/pseuds/Adam_Typing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of the sudden, cataclysmic death of the Kingdom Of Valentine, the nation of Erion finds itself embroiled in a vast, bloody war. The five surviving kingdoms begin to make their claims for supremacy, and it is their sons and daughters who shall steer the course of the land.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

_**Odin Sphere** _

__

_**Prologue** _

The door clicked as it was unlocked, and her grandfather ushered her into the attic. Dust hung heavy in the air, faint motes lit in the glow of the lamp. The curtain was pushed back, and the room was filled with new light.

  
Alice’s grandfather shuffled around, mumbling about finding those old books for her to keep herself entertained with. Alice watched him with the faint fascination children had for their grandparents, as if she was observing some new and unusual critter. Socrates, her black cat, wound his way around her legs, earning a brief, distracted scratch atop his head.

“Here they are. The Saga, all first editions. Here, Alice. I wish for you to read them. I’d have been about your age when I first read them,” he said, pulling a stack of six books from a ribbon bound box, and blew the dust from their covers. Each book was set with a silvered coin, displaying a unique King or Queen’s head on their surfaces.

“What are they about, Grandpa?” Alice asked, picking up a red book, its cover decorated with the portrait of a delicate faced Witch-Queen. Her grandfather chuckled, easing the book out of her hand and giving her a book bound in blue. A Lady in a feathered crown, staring with a calm, serene expression was embossed on the silver coin. The words _Book One, The Valkyrie,_ were printed onto the front in flaking silver.

“Oh, old kings and queens, fighting for glory, their sons and daughters and their lives fraught with peril. About witches and sorcerers and dragons and wars. About the end of the world and prophecies and hope. Good, heady stuff. You’ll enjoy them,” he said, as he removed a cover from an old arm chair, age and use having made the cushions into soft comfort. “Now, you be a good girl and take care of those books. I believe your mother wanted something from me,” he said, walking from the attic, stooped and weary with age. Alice watched, smiling at him. Socrates let out a soft mewl and she gathered him up under one arm, climbing onto the armchair.

She opened the book, letting Socrates curl up on her lap, his large eyes regarding the pages as she opened them to the cover.

_“In the Land of Erion, war was stirring its ugly head. A call had been sent out, and it was the days of thread cutting and life taking._

_Twas the end of the long ten years after the fall of the Kingdom of Valentine, and in the wake of its death, the nations of the Aesir and Vanir went to war. The Kings and Queens sought out the secrets of the dead nation, eager to pry them from the cooling corpse like looters upon a finished foe. The Fae of the Vanir emerged from their shadowy forests, like water welling up through the soil, eager to find something to save their kind from a slow decline. The Ragnans of the Aesir descended from their Eyries, like birds of prey upon their quarry, their hearts set on besting the Fae to the prize. Relics of the Magical Kingdom would be the victory laurels of any nation who could hold them._

  
_The field that had once been Valentine’s Proud Castles was to be the stage, the soldiers as  actors and their Lords as the playwrights. Twould be Griselda, Proud Maiden-Knight of the Valkyrie and her Sister, Gwendolyn, to take the field, against the Fae Queen Elfaria, and her chosen champion, the Shadow Knight Oswald._

_  
One could taste the death on the air…_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Valkyrie takes her place.

**_Book One: The Aria of the Valkyrie_ **

 

_Chapter One:  In the Ash of the Old Kingdom_

_“The Valkyrie were beautiful warriors, the elite of Ragnanival’s soldiery, held in great regard for their skill at the art of war. Blessed with winged armour and spears of peerless and perfect steel, the Valkyrie were named the Choosers of the Dead, a moniker earned from their habit of descending on enemy champions and rending them limb from limb.”_

The wind was blowing across the valley. It was hard and unkind, a graceless shrieking and gnawing gale that mourned disaster. It carried sand and ash and smoke with it, across the ruins of a long dead kingdom. It whispered and moaned as if the spirits of the restless dead had been caught in it and dragged through the dust.

For Gwendolyn, an Oath-Sworn Valkyrie Hersir, Daughter of Odin and Princess of the Kingdom of Ragnanival, it was the murmuring promise of death in the air. Her Valkyrie Cohort, fully two score strong, were gliding in the wind, their wings spread from their ornate armour. Her wings, smoke black and azure blue, flexed and flapped, guiding her on the updrafts and the rising currents, to the battlefield. Like her fellow Valkyrie, the art of flight was as natural as breathing.

The other Valkyrie descended, towards the battle beneath them, in the clawed ruins of the Old Kingdom. They pulled down their visors, settled their shields and clutched their spears, a prayer on their lips for valour and luck, and then they fell like arrows. They fell onto the battlefield, amongst the axemen and Berserk of their Kingdom, the suddenness of their descent a lethal edge in the battle.

They had been commanded by King Odin, He Who Knew A Thousand Spells, The Demon Lord and the High Commander of Ragnanival’s Armies, to take to the old resting place of a Kingdom long since burnt to the ground and salted. He had, in his vast wisdom and cunning, found some secret buried, and for the glory of his Kingdom and for the conquests yet to come, he had ordered his armies to take the field and face down the Vanir.

Gwendolyn could smell blood on the air, and she spiralled down. She could see just how the battle was turning from here, how the enemy, the soldiers of a kingdom called Ringford, were fighting against the Aesir. The blue standards of Ragnanival being driven back, being cut down, in a tally that fearfully outweighed the number of Ringford banners being torn apart by Berserks and axemen and bombardiers. Gwendolyn felt the familiar stirrings of fear in her heart.

And it would be in the ruins of an old chapel, drowned in dust, that she would find her sister, the Jarl of the Valkyrie, the Heir-Princess of the Realm and favoured Daughter. And it would be there that Gwendolyn’s fear would turn to despair and regret in a single moment.

She alighted at the mouth of the scalped and skinned church. The dead choked its gate, the broken paladins and witches of the Vanir, who had been caught in the crush of battle and left for the carrion. Blood turned the ashen sands red, stained the pale stone and made the earthy tones of the fallen’s armour darker, richer. Even a vaunted enemy elite, a Unicorn Knight of the Forest, lay with the fallen, a testament to the ferocity of the skirmish here. Gwendolyn, stepping amongst the corpses, held her spear ready and entered the church to the sound of slow, ragged breathing. Her hesitant, cautious steps became a rush as she saw her sister.

Griselda, the Jarl of the Valkyrie, sat atop a mound of corpses like they were a ruined throne. For a moment, she resembled an idle warrior queen, resting on her conquest. She was dead, or close enough that it mattered not how long it took now. Blood matted the white veil of her hair, the silver beauty of her armour marred with crimson and ragged wounds. Her cloak of violet silk was shredded, heavy with blood, the lustre of it lost to dust. Her spear, a gleaming weapon tipped with an azure crystal, lay across her lap, as she reclined there, dying. Her shield, still bound to her arm, was a broken, buckled thing, any heraldry lost to a thousand nicks and cuts and scars.

“Griselda!” Gwendolyn cried, stumbling over a fallen Fae, to reach her sister, and cradle her. She cast off her helmet to show her face to Griselda. She was light and pale, as if the nearness of death left her hollow, weightless. The Valkyrie’s eyes slowly opened, glazed and unfocused, the sharp blue now a pale shadow. A smile parted her lips. They were stained red with the blood Griselda had been coughing up. Her chin was smeared with it, like a drunkard who had choked on his wine.

“G-Gwendolyn?” she managed to murmur, letting her sister cradle her. Her visor and helm had slipped away, fallen to the floor, ignored, as Gwendolyn looked over her sister, on the brink of tears. Her hands clenched in the ruined cloak. Griselda smiled, even as she left more of her life on the floor and the light of eyes faded with each laboured breath. “It’s so… so quiet now. The battle sounds too far away.” The Heiress closed her eyes, and it seemed a regret came over her. Her words sounded heavy with despair for a moment. “It seems I cannot follow my King into the final battle…”

  
Gwendolyn ran a hand over her sister’s face, recognising the coldness and the pallor of a dying soldier. She had seen death take many before, knew its face and its colour. She was about to speak, to urge her sister to not give in, despite how complete the ruin of her wounds was. Griselda let out a slow chuckle, and she reached down, her gauntlet trembling as she lifted the spear from her lap. A parting gift for her sister. “G-Gwendolyn. Please, take this. I have no use for it now… This spear... it has made a mountain of corpses… I am sorry I can give you nothing better.” Griselda sucked in a last breath. She was beyond pain now, and offered another sad smile. “. At least…The King… Father will praise my actions.”

At the mention of their Father, Gwendolyn’s head bowed. The Chapel was so silent, so cold despite the desert’s touch. She eased the spear from her sister’s fragile grip. The weapon was beautiful, the carved shaft made of black polished steel and the head was a gleaming crystal of the darkest blue. It was slick with blood. Gwendolyn couldn’t hold back her sadness, head bowed, a tear running down her cheeks. Her hands clenched and she shuddered. She looked up at Griselda’s soft murmured laugh, confused and pained

“Tears in your eyes? You are too kind, sister. Do not cry. I leave this world as a great warrior…” Griselda stopped, as if uncertain what to say next, uncertain of herself… and then spoke slowly, one hand raised, grasping blindly for her sister, “‘Tis so dark here… Gwendolyn… I cannot see you.”

Gwendolyn clasped the hand, squeezed it and… felt her sister go still, felt the faint warmth ebb from her. She pressed her head to her Jarl’s, sobbing for a moment. She knelt there, clutching her sister, unwilling to leave. As if her passing had lifted the silence, the sounds of battle rang out through the desert again. Gwendolyn lifted her head, her face stained and  She took the spear from the floor, looking at the beautiful weapon, and left her sister upon her throne, as a fallen Queen of Battle.  

“Rest, Griselda,” Gwendolyn said through a choking sob, as she lowered her visor, “I will not let you be alone for long.”

It did not take long for Gwendolyn to find the heart of battle. It was little more a than a skirmish over a field of the dead, the fight burning out of both sides. Battle was like a fire, feeding itself on the bodies of soldiers and drawing their breath to keep itself burning hot. But now both armies had spent themselves upon this hill, Aesir and Vanir laid out alike in repose. But the soldiers of Ringford came forward again, rallying their standards. Gwendolyn ascended on the wind, her wings flapping out, as she sought out the greatest of the Vanir’s soldiers.

She could tell the Vanir were winning, holding the field. Her forces were surrounded, a tightening noose of enemy soldiers. It was promising to be a bloody battle of attrition. And then she saw him, the chosen champion of the Vanir.

In the pale sands of the ruins, he was a black shadow, a phantom of pitch smoke who leapt from foe to foe and made murder. There was something predatory about the way he fought. Something nightmarish about the way he bounded over the ruined ground. A Berseker, clad in bearskins and scaled armour, set upon him, mattock in hand. The Shadow Knight barely gave him a chance, ducking beneath the strike. A sword punctured the Berserk, spilling blood and armour shards like broken ice. The sword stabbed twice, three times, each time a hellish demonstration of blade work.

Gwendolyn watched a trio of Axemen be rushed down by the Shadow Knight, his blade slashing through them as if they were paper men. She hurled herself at the knight, shouting a challenge through her visor. Her spear, the gifted weapon, sang as she stabbed at him, her wings spurring her on. The knight’s sword parried the crystalline tip, and the two danced over the battle field, leaping after one another, striking and slashing. In the veil of shadows, two eyes burned with the scarlet brilliance of an inferno.

The knight got the upper hand, shunting her to the ground, pinning her spear underfoot, half burying the weapon as he held his sword to her throat. Gwendolyn’s helmet and visor had come loose during the battle, rolled away, forgotten. She could feel the edge of his blade on the curve of her neck and she glared at him. She had found death at last. “Kill me. How long do you intend to keep your foe pinned?”

The air was thick with the fuming shadows that shrouded the knight… but they slowly faded away, wicking away like blood in water. She was surprised to see he was so young, his hair fair and tousled in the wind. His eyes were golden, and he had a lean, slender face. He put her in mind of a wolf made hard and strong through hunting and starvation. There was uncertainty writ across his face. He drew his blade back and spoke, “Quit the field. This battle is done. Any more dying here shall be a waste.” His voice was a soft murmur, like wind in silk, utterly at odds with the blood on his face and armour and sword.

He stepped back, freeing her spear and turned. He almost sighed as a Berserk, draped in bear pelts and rippling armour, charged him. The Shadow Knight made one motion, a quick jab with his sword under the Berserk’s overhead swing. The Berserker stood still, mouth open in a snarl, as the Shadow Knight dug his blade deep and then swept it out sideways, practically tearing the soldier in half with the stroke. When the Ragnan soldier collapsed, his blood pouring red into the sand, the Knight cast a single look at Gwendolyn, and then stormed off, sword held at his side.

Gwendolyn was shocked, confused, and sat in her fugue for a moment, shaking despite the heat of the desert. Her hand was still wrapped around the throat of her spear. Survivors and reinforcements were staggering through the battlefield, and she was rising to her feet when a group of axemen and bombardiers approached. She could hear the uncertain murmuring from their ranks, speaking in hushed tones of the Shadow Knight, as if mentioning him above a whisper would draw his attention from the rest of the battle.

“He’s as terrifying as the rumours claim. They say that he has bargained with the Queen of the Dead to obtain such strength,” an Aesir axeman whispered, “Can anyone best him?” Gwendolyn silenced their murmuring as she approached, her expression dark. She replaced her visor, sliding it down over her face so that her troops could not see her reddened eyes. They all saw the spear in her hands, and realised what it meant. She gestured sharply with it.

“Arrange the survivors, and prepare to break out of the enemy formation. Our reinforcements will force the enemy back for some time. We make for the church there to recover my… our fallen Jarl. We shall retreat to the Castle.”

  
Her declaration was met with a look of disbelief. None of them wanted to leave the field whilst the battle was still raging. None of them wanted to leave in defeat. Retreat was a dirty word in their ears, and a bitter reality to face this day. They turned, preparing themselves, cursing the turning of fate, and hurled themselves to the enemy lines. An order was an order, and the practical choice was preferable to dying in vain for something that was not close enough to glory.


End file.
